"Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Monday laid out an economic plan that would lower corporate and individual taxes and cut federal spending by $1 trillion during his first year in office, achieved partly by eliminating five cabinet-level departments. Mr. Paul, a longtime Texas congressman, said he would close the departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior and Housing and Urban Development, as part of a broader plan to cut federal spending." (10/18/11)

"There have been a series of articles explaining exactly why Ron Paul should appeal to progressives, and counter-arguments by liberals and progressives as to why Ron Paul should not appeal to them. ... Given that Ron Paul is not the leading Republican candidate, that the nomination is more likely to go to Mitt Romney, then why is there so much frenzy, both for and against, for Ron Paul?" (10/13/11)

"At this weekend’s Values Voter Summit ... you’d expect a strong social conservative (say, Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum?) to do well in a mock election among Republican presidential hopefuls. But, no, it was libertarian Ron Paul who won the day, taking a relative whopping 37 percent of the vote -- way ahead of Bachmann (8 percent) and Santorum (16 percent), even besting current conservative favorite Herman Cain (23 percent)." [editor's note: Knickerbocker seems not to have noticed that Paul is a strong social conservative, and writes his victory off to stuffing the audience and thumping the Bible a bit - TLK] (10/09/11)

"Sheldon Richman argues that Paul’s failure to loudly proclaim his support for open borders 'doesn’t speak well of the candidate.' He could not be more wrong. First off we do not even know if Paul really supports open borders but even if he does it is much more important to win the election then to make pure rhetorical points." (09/22/11)

"Paul’s message of limited government and individual freedoms has attracted a diverse and loyal base of both liberals and Republicans .... However, some liberals who are otherwise thrilled by Paul (especially his vociferous opposition to foreign military intervention), might be disturbed by his long association with anti-black racism and anti-Semitism." (09/15/11)

"Just before last week's Republican debate at the Reagan Library, Ron Paul released an attack ad targeting his fellow Texan and presidential aspirant Rick Perry. It shows a young Congressman Paul posing with the Gipper in a series of photos and features a portentous voiceover claiming that, while Paul 'stood with Reagan,' Perry was a perfidious, Gore-pimping liberal. This ad is brazenly deceptive, but it does provide an edifying glimpse into the true character of a slippery Beltway operator posing as a man of principle fighting the good fight against the corrupt 'prags' of the GOP establishment. It reveals that Ron Paul is a fraud of the first order." (09/13/11)

"Ron Paul’s position on what I’ll call unauthorized immigration -- or immigration sans government permission -- is indeed strange. He calls for 'secure borders' but opposes employer sanctions, Real ID, and a border wall (which he says could be used to keep people in as well as out). He also minimizes the importance of unauthorized immigration by saying it wouldn’t be such an issue if the economy were healthy (people are worried about jobs now) and the welfare state didn’t exist. That odd mix leads me to wonder if Ron Paul is actually for open borders but doesn’t want to say it." (09/09/11)

"It’s refreshing to hear a politician make perfect sense when talking about the proper role of the U.S. government in the economy and the lives of the people. Dr. Ron Paul, a physician, is the only Republican presidential candidate who gets the issues mostly right. The 12 term Congressman from Texas’[s] 14th District is definitely the Libertarian conscience of the Republican Party." (09/04/11)

"Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell introduced a poison to the libertarian movement. They promoted the anti-immigrant, anti-gay views of the conservative Right. They pushed the venom of racism and bigotry in a way that the modern libertarian movement has never before experienced. And they attracted a bunch of intolerant, bigoted morons to the movement in the name of a floating abstraction called anarcho-capitalism. This is rather contradictory given Paul's living off of the taxpayers for most his adult life. Gary Johnson is what libertarianism used to be about, before the sheet-wearing neo-Confederates infiltrated the movement." (08/30/11)

"[Adele Stan's recent article on Ron Paul] generated an astounding 1,723 comments, and they just keep on coming. Clearly, Ron Paul and libertarian politics are a hot topic for debate. Here is an overview of what commenters had to say." (08/29/11)

"Paul’s most valuable contribution to the pro-life movement may be his insistence that libertarian views not only are compatible with, but are reliant upon, pro-life views. That’s a perspective that distinguishes Paul from the other libertarian in the GOP race -- Gary Johnson, who is pro-abortion -- and one that he is unapologetic about." (08/29/11)

"Some might decide it’s because he’s (allegedly) a 'fringe candidate' who (allegedly) has no chance of winning. But the truth is precisely the opposite of that: it is because if the media actually gave him equal coverage HE WOULD WIN!" (08/26/11)

"To us ordinary Americans, the hoi polloi if you will, the process of social and political change is simple: we get to decide if and when a political change occurs, because, you see, we have these events known as elections. ... To the Beltway crowd -- the elaborate society that has grown up around what can only be characterized as America’s version of a Royal Court -- this is an archaic fiction, a theory that will never be put into practice." (08/26/11)

"They say he's inconsistent and kooky, and they're right. But since the left doesn't have a better champion of liberty, shouldn't shouldn't it cheer his rise? What's the worst thing that could happen if Ron Paul won the presidency? After I posed the question, writers including Patrick Appel, Alex Pareene, and Pascal Emmanuel Gobrey responded. Each post is worth reading -- and if you're the Ron Paul campaign, worth responding to." (08/25/11)

"On today’s O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly did a segment with Dick Morris, in which O’Reilly taunted Republican presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul, for not accepting O’Reilly’s invitation to appear on his show, and Dick Morris stuck his nose in the air and said the reason was that Dr. Paul was afraid to answer three candidate-destroying questions ..." (08/24/11)

"Paul is also against things I’m for -- like emergency care for illegals, and Roe vs. Wade and Social Security and Medicare. But so what? He has a laser-like eye for what’s sick about our economy -- for example, the $10 billion monthly we spend in Afghanistan while child poverty at home goes rampant -- and our fear-mongering politics -- for example, the equally no-end-in-sight 'drug war.' ... The Republican establishment is terrified of him. If this isn’t enough recommendation, Rush Limbaugh loathes Paul who he calls 'nuts on parade.'" (08/24/11)

"I credit the likes of Murray Rothbard for hooking a New Left class critique of American progressivism on top of the momentum of lifestyle anarchism to forge a second self-identified libertarian movement in the US. However, I also credit Murray Rothbard with attempting to later unhook libertarianism from lifestyle anarchism with the pursuit of the so-called 'Paleo phase,' which was a disaster. In terms of Rothbardian proteges, I would associate Karl Hess with the earlier Rothbard and Ron Paul with the second, 'Paleo' Rothbard." (08/22/11)

"Given the choice that the Internet offers us all today, how long will we as a people continue to accept the endless lies pumped at us day in and day out by media hacks who neither represent the news honestly, nor have the guts to stand up and stop the idiocy themselves? That we should assign blame to the talking heads only and stop there however, is as ridiculous as their present efforts to pretend by omission that Ron Paul is not a top-tier contender in the GOP nominee election process." (08/23/11)

"There are a lot of libertarians who still buy into the Ron Paul myth, I'm sad to say. Ron is no libertarian. He's a paleoconservative and his voting record backs that up. In addition he has all the crazy shit he gets from the Birch Society and continues to spew out. But what I find surprising is how gullible some libertarians are regarding Ron's excuses for all this." (08/22/11)

"The exchange highlighted the irreconcilable differences that exist between those who believe there is a bad guy under every rock and those who actually know history and understand international relations. Santorum and his neoconservative brethren are the former while Ron Paul represents the latter. Its only common sense that if you corner an animal it will act aggressively in order to defend itself and escape. Countries are no different." (08/21/11)

"Ron Paul is the rarest of politicians. He is the embodiment of honesty, integrity and principle. Most people like him would have just given up long ago on the political process and returned to their normal lives where they wouldn’t have to deal with so much filth and corruption. Dr. Paul has hung in there since 1976 when he first entered politics in hopes that he could change for the better the way things are run in Washington, DC." (08/21/11)

"Who is that mystery candidate? U.S. Rep. Dr. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is vying for the Republican nomination for president, but you would not know it if your only news source is the old world mainstream media. Paul is effectively under a media blackout." (08/20/11)